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Markus Joachim Landschoff — Gold Digger in Australia (1853)
Seized by the gold fever, Markus Joachim Landschoff left his family in Bornholm to seek fortune in the Australian goldfields. His journey reflects the hopes, hardships, and disillusionments shared by thousands of nineteenth-century migrants.
In 1851 a California gold digger made what was reported as the first major gold discovery. Newspapers across the world eagerly spread exaggerated stories of instant wealth. Although gold had already been discovered in Australia, these findings were initially kept secret by British authorities, fearing unrest among the many convicts transported there from England.
At the same time, in St. Torvegade in Rønne, Bornholm, a young merchant read Bornholm’s Avis with growing fascination. His name was Markus Joachim Landschoff.
For four years he had successfully operated a grocery business in Torvegade. Before that, he had tried many occupations: working as a typographer at Bornholm’s Avis and later in a tobacco factory. Like many of his generation, he was searching for stability and opportunity.
In the spring of 1853, the gold fever finally seized him. He was thirty years old. After reading the almost fairytale-like reports of the Australian goldfields, he turned to his wife and said:
“Holgerine, now I must seriously consider what we have spoken about. You must take care of the business at home.”
Leaving wife and children behind
Markus Joachim Landschoff was born on April 10, 1823, in Dahme, Ost Holstein, Germany, the son of Jürgen Heinrich Landschoof and Dorothea Jensdatter. There were four sisters in the family.
Originally German, the family became Danish subjects after moving to Lolland in 1828. At the age of five, Markus moved with his parents to Maribo.
In 1845 he settled in Rønne, Bornholm. Two years later he married Karen Marie Stibolt, the daughter of a baker. She died after only two years of marriage, just twenty-five years old.
Eight months later, he remarried Holgerine Christiane Sonne, daughter of grocer Adolf Sonne of Gudhjem.
When Landschoff left for Australia, he left behind:
- a daughter, Dorthea Marie, aged five, from his first marriage
- a son, Markus Christian, aged two
- an infant daughter, Thora Elise, still in the cradle
Neither business nor family could restrain him. The gold fever had taken hold — and he felt compelled to leave.
The long journey to Australia
On May 17, 1853, Landschoff departed with several companions aboard the English frigate Carntyne. They arrived in Melbourne on August 24, after a voyage of nearly 5,000 miles.
In a joint letter written three days after arrival, they reported that the journey had gone relatively well. The food supply exceeded expectations, with the exception of fourteen days of acidic drinking water.
They wrote:
“The dry biscuits were not pleasant, but could be swallowed. Once a week we were given fresh beef in airtight tin cans, as well as salted pork and meat, flour, rice, oatmeal, dried ground potatoes, butter, cheese, coffee, tea, sugar and syrup, which we prepared ourselves as we pleased.”
Another ship, the Wilhelmsbrug from Hamburg, arrived in Melbourne with ninety-nine Danes on board, including ten Bornholmers. Their experience was dramatically different.
Landschoff described their conditions as horrific: sour water for most of the journey, meat and butter completely green and spoiled, and biscuits filled with worms. Disease spread rapidly — smallpox, measles and other illnesses — and three adults and five children died during the voyage.
He wrote that “it was a miracle of God that there were not more dead.”
Upon arrival, the cost of accommodation in Melbourne had risen sharply. Like many others, Landschoff and his companions pitched tents outside the city.
First impressions of the goldfields
In letters to his family, Landschoff initially described vast opportunities in the Gold Country. More than 20,000 people were arriving within a few months, yet work was still abundant.
Day laborers earned 4 to 6 dollars per day, while skilled craftsmen such as carpenters, blacksmiths and masons received 13 to 15 dollars per day.
Yet even these high wages could not compete with the lure of gold.
“When the rainy season ends in a few weeks, everyone will go to the mines, and no one will work in the city for any payment whatsoever.”
New mines were constantly being discovered, with shafts dug 50 to 100 feet deep, sometimes yielding gold in large chunks. With five other Danes, Landschoff prepared to travel 25 Danish miles to the mines, writing:
“God grant us happiness on the journey!”
Disappointed expectations
The optimistic hopes did not last. Reality in the goldfields proved harsh and unforgiving.
One of Landschoff’s travelling companions, the young grocer Poul Thranum from Rønne, died less than ten months after leaving Bornholm.
Shortly before his death, Thranum wrote home with a stark warning:
“If my countrymen wish to travel to Australia to dig gold, I must advise them all to stay home. They have nothing here to gain.”
He described mines so thoroughly excavated that finding an untouched spot was rare. Shafts collapsed into water-filled tunnels, leaving diggers standing in water up to their legs.
Thranum reported that many had dug twenty or more shafts, between eight and twenty feet deep, without earning more than food.
In Ballarat alone, during the previous winter, 600 large shafts were dug between 100 and 400 feet deep. Gold was found in fewer than forty of them.
He wrote bitterly:
“It is undeniably true that nearly all of the approximately 1,000 Danes in the Victoria District have come here for at least a year and a half for herring, and all of us have received a long nose — to a greater or lesser extent.”
Broken hopes
Landschoff himself echoed these conclusions in his own letters:
“Do not believe, dear friends, that gold and wealth lie ready here. At home and aboard ship you form far too high expectations. Dreams dissolve into exhausting labor and bitter disappointment.”
He estimated that perhaps two out of every hundred found gold, while the rest lost as much money as they had brought with them.
A further difficulty was the severe shortage of water inland:
“In summer there is almost total lack of water, a hardship as serious for the gold digger as the lack of gold itself, for the gold-bearing soil cannot be examined without water.”
Home again — richer in experience
After a year in the Ballarat mines, Landschoff advised any married man who enjoyed a reasonably secure livelihood to remain at home.
He remained in Australia for nearly two years. In 1855, he returned to Bornholm and resumed his business.
Not richer in gold — but richer in experience.